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Wednesday, July 20, 2011

চিচিন্গায়ের তরকারী (Chichingay-er Torkari) or Snake Gourd Curry

I have been meaning to cook চিচিঙ্গা (chichinge or snake gourd) for a while now.  I even bought the darn thing and then it just stayed in the fridge. The external appearance just tells you that this beast is much easier to cook that the other cousins. 
Well... At least the preparation bit is way easier. Even with the back of a blunt-ish knife it was an easy task scraping the outer skin away a bit.


This I quickly chopped into semi-circles or what you would describe in Bengali as চাকলা-চাকলা করে (chakla chakla koray).

This proceeded to nuke (microwave) for 2min while I got the ফোড়ন/phoron/tempering ingredients ready.
I took some garlic cloves and roughly sliced them along with  a small onion. I also took a Kashmiri red chilly, some mustard seeds and a small roundel of garlic. The garlic nub was quickly smashed, the Kashmiri chilly gutted to rid it of the seeds that could potentially set my mouth on fire, and then the oil splashed into the pan for a quick heating.

The chilly and the mustard went in first and sputtered till the chilly aroma wafted from the pan...

Next the onion and the garlic bit went in... I have a tendency to caramelize the garlic since I'm partial to the taste it imparts to whatever cooks after that...

In the meanwhile I got the microwaved (hence steam cooked) চিচিঙ্গা/chichinge out...

Now everything went into the pan with a little salt added...

And voila! My dinner was ready...